Croft Primary School
Spring term 2017
Welcome to Year 4 and a new school year!
I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and are fresh and ready for a new school term. This Newsletter
should give you an idea of what your child will be learning during the Spring term, how you can support them
and other information about the next few weeks.
Year 4 Autumn
Term Creative
Curriculum
Year 4 Autumn
Term Literacy
Our topic this term will be ‘I am Warrior’ a study of the Ancient Romans, Italy and
Volcanoes. It’s another very exciting and engaging topic which I hope the children
will find interesting. We will link our topic to creating patterns like Roman
mosaics, creating sculptures of figures, comparing the locations of Britain and
Italy, describing the physical features of volcanoes and understanding
earthquakes. In French we will talk about positions, directions, transport, names
of countries and weather. We will be building on our previous work of creating
sequences of instructions to develop algorithms in Computing, and presenting our
topic work in different ways. In RE we will study Islam, comparing it to other
religions and worships, before turning our attention to Lent.
If you have any artefacts which may enhance our topic please let me know!
This term we will be reading and then writing our own Soliloquies, based on the
use of historical resources to describe life as a Roman, before performing to an
audience. They will include fronted adverbials in their writing, such as
‘Unfortunately,’ ‘After a while,’ ‘Carefully,’ and ‘Outside my house.’ The children
will be reading play scripts, understanding the usefulness of stage directions and
writing their own to retell the story of a gladiatorial combat live from the
Colosseum! In contrast, they will look at how to use speech punctuation accurately
and use it in writing dialogue. They will be writing their own instructions to
create a recipe describing how to make some delicious Roman food, and
presenting this on a Menu considering the structure, layout and presentation of
their work. They will use expanded noun phrases and include more adjectives in
their sentences to ensure they are adding description and detail to their work.
The topic links brilliantly with learning some Latin and learning what words we
use that have a Latin influence.
Linked with our topic and Geography work, we will read poems about Volcanoes
and use our reading to inspire our own work. We will imagine we were present at
the destruction of Pompeii as report as eyewitnesses giving a historical recount of
events, leading to a newspaper report on the Roman invasion. Through study of
these texts, we will focus on fronted adverbials (e.g. Last Friday… After eating his
meal… Carefully…), use of prepositions (among, behind, between, under), clauses
and present and past tense (is, was, want, wanted, eat, ate, go, went).
In guided reading sessions we will be reading the Roman myths and legends of
Romulus and Remus and also Theseus and the minotaur, and retelling the story in
our own words then comparing descriptions of Boudicca to look at bias of
historical evidence.
Year 4 Autumn
Term Science
This term the children will be exploring States of matter (Solids, Liquids and
Gases) and All living things, including humans. The children will be learning the
key vocabulary associated with these topics, such evaporation, condensation,
solidifying, and planning their own investigations, which they can then carry out.
These topics are linked to the destruction of the Roman city of Pompeii.
This term we will have a focus on Roman numerals, and ensuring the children can
read the numbers up to 100. In the next week we will be looking at shading
fractions of shapes and finding fractions of a number. We will move onto
equivalent fractions. We will then solve problems using fractions and begin to add
fractions with the same denominator.
Later in the term we will recognise these fractions as decimal equivalent. Through
a study of Roman buildings, we will calculate the perimeter and area of
rectangular places. Roman mosaics will inspire us to recognise and explain
patterns and relationships with some investigations involved too, including
completing symmetrical patterns in different orientations.
Year 4 Autumn
Term Numeracy
We will also be solving simple measure and money problems involving fractions
and decimals to two decimal places and estimating, comparing and calculating
different measures, including money in pounds and pence, later on in the term.
Throughout the term we will be revisiting weekly mental maths skills and
practices, such as their times tables and division facts.
Year 4 will be going on a residential to Kingswood later this term. Details about this will
be given at a meeting in school on Tuesday 24th January. If you cannot attend this
meeting, the information will also be sent home. The date for the residential is
Wednesday March 15th to Friday March 17th.
PE will be indoors on a Thursday afternoon (gymnastics) and this term our Games lessons will be on a
Wednesday morning (hockey and then netball).
As the weather has got colder, Games kit will need to include dark jogging bottoms, white t-shirt
with dark sweater and suitable footwear with a carrier bag to take them home in case they are
muddy. Kit for gymnastics should consist of dark shorts and a white T-shirt.
If kit and uniform could be labelled with your child’s name this would be most useful.
Homework and Diaries
Year 4 will continue to be issued homework on a Friday and this will be due
in on the following Wednesday. House points are issued for it being returned
on time. Extra house points are achieved for a high standard of work and
presentation.
The children will now be given weekly spellings to learn on a Monday to be
learnt for the following Monday. To encourage them to learn these there will
be house point rewards. These will normally follow a spelling pattern but
sometimes might be words which are noted within their work, topic related
or science related. Some of these words do not follow a pattern.
During the year the children will be given their tables to learn if necessary.
The children are also expected to read their reading books on a regular basis at home. The staff in
Year 4 will endeavor to hear them read as often as they can.
Contact
I am normally available after school if you have any queries. I can also be contacted on my school email address
which is [email protected] . Please feel free to write any comments or messages in the Homework Diary
and use it as a method of communication between school and home.
Thank you for your support, Miss V Paris.